Alumn Emily Johnson works with community engagement, a topic that led her to choose Master’s Programme in Aalto

What did you study at Aalto University and why? How did you end up choosing your master’s studies?

At Aalto, I studied Spatial Planning and Transportation Engineering (SPT). At the time when I was thinking about choosing a master's program, I had a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture and had been working a few years as a landscape designer. I had long been interested in community engagement - or involving the public in the designing and planning process - and I wanted to pursue a master's degree that would give me skills in that area. I knew I would be choosing a Finnish university, since I was very drawn to Finnish society. When looking through different Finnish universities, I saw that that Prof. Marketta Kyttä specialized in my exact area of interest and that she was (at the time) director of the SPT program. That made it a very easy choice.

Could you share us something memorable from the time you were studying? 

I spontaneously--and successfully--ran for the AYY board during my first year. I actually had no idea what I was getting into, but I ended up making amazing friends, visiting unexpected parts of Finland, and seeing a side of student culture I might have never otherwise seen.

What was the best part of your studies at Aalto? 

Definitely, absolutely, no question the best part of my studies was the friends I made. They are many of my closest friends today.

Where are you working at the moment? 

I work at Mapita. Mapita is a small SaaS business in Helsinki, known for making Maptionnaire, a community engagement platform made for planners. I work as a content creator, so I develop community engagement-related content that resonates with planners.

How is your regular day at work? 

After the regular morning coffee, catching up with colleagues, and checking all my emails, I spend the majority of my day developing community engagement content--that could be a social media post, a newsletter, an article for our blog, or a customer success story. Depending on where I am in the process, I might spend my day scoping the internet or our marketing tools to see what kind of information gaps we should fill, interviewing our customers to learn more about their community engagement experiences, or (the hard part!) actually writing and creating graphics.

What kind of tools did you get from your studies that have been useful in your working life? 

Two things come to mind: community engagement expertise and writing experience. The Participatory Planning course--the course I most anticipated in our program--gave me exactly what I was hoping for: a solid foundation of community engagement knowledge. As a project for that course, I also had the privilege of volunteering with ACRE on their participatory budgeting program. It was a really valuable experience implementing freshly-learned community engagement best practices in a real project with a real timeline and budget. It's important for my current work that I know community engagement principles, as well as the challenges and realities of implementing them. When I was an SPT student, I did not enjoy how much writing we had to do, but now that writing is part of my career I am glad for the practice!

What are your plans for the future? 

As someone who has studied planning, I try not to strictly plan my future. Too much of life is unpredictable. I never planned to work as a content creator, but this position at Mapita was a lucky find and I love it. I don't know what's next, but hopefully it will still be in Finland. I'm eagerly waiting for my Finnish citizenship application to get approved!

What tips would you give to students starting their studies? 

Life is full of surprises. Planning your near-term future makes sense, but in the long-term, the most you can do is try to set yourself up to be resilient and adaptive to whatever future might come.